


The Spymaster

by illyriantremors



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: F/M, Feyre POV, Friendship, Post-Court of Nightmares, Spoilers, Training, acomaf
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-28
Updated: 2016-09-28
Packaged: 2018-08-18 07:27:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8153890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illyriantremors/pseuds/illyriantremors
Summary: This fic contains spoilers for ACOMAF. Feyre has just come off her fight with Rhysand after the Court of Nightmares when she runs in to Azriel and Cassian and decides to ask the Spymaster for a special brand of training only he could help her with. Together, they begin to understand each other a little better and work through some of their issues concerning their other halves. It's a friendship fic, but it's filled with shippy Moriel/Feysand feels!





	

**Author's Note:**

> In reply to this fic request prompt on Tumblr: "Can you do a Azriel and Feyre fic w them just being friends because their friendship is so underrated and I just need their friendship?"

I woke up the morning after with a horrible sinking feeling in my gut: guilt.

My conversation with Rhys played over and over again in my mind on repeat and I couldn’t find the switch to turn it off.

_What if you did let someone in? And what if they saw everything, and still walked away?_

_Who could blame them?  
_

_Who would want to bother with that sort of mess?  
_

I shuddered not unlike the flinch Rhys had reacted with as we’d winnowed out of the Hewn City and I’d flung the words at him so carelessly. His face had nearly killed me and I would have rather stayed up on that mountain top and apologized a million times over until he forgave me if he had let me. But he didn’t.

I should never have said those things to him, but I couldn’t take them back and he was nowhere to be found now as I searched all morning to apologize.

The clash of blades that met me when I rose above the House of Wind gave me a small spark of hope that he would be there, but it was only Cassian and Azriel bathing in sweat as they went at it. An uncharacteristic cut dripping blood across Cassian’s face told me Az had gotten a hit in, but Cassian didn’t seem concerned by it.

They paused as I strode forward feeling sheepish and undoubtedly it was written all over my face. Rhys would have scolded me about keeping a better mask when I needed it, but then he wasn’t…

“He’s not here,” Cassian said pinching my nerves. Apparently Rhys wasn’t avoiding everyone if Cassian knew enough that I’d be lurking about for him.

“I’m not looking for him,” I said far too quickly and the Illyrians exchanged a doubtful look before waiting for me to offer them up something to go on. “But I’d like to hit something all the same.”

Cassian grinned and slid out of the tense stance he’d been holding, but Azriel remained rigid. “Let’s go,” Cassian said making to step aside and drop his sword so he could train me hand to hand, but there was something about Azriel that made me stop myself from following the Commander.

Azriel watched me carefully, the shadows planking his hard face. Even when they were confined to smaller sects of his body - his face, his hands, his chest - they had an aura about them that suggested every inch of Azriel was covered even if you couldn’t see it. His sword even seemed to hum with their energy. It was somehow worse than how I normally saw him.

I plucked a sword more my size from the treasure trove of weapons and approached the Shadowsinger with more boldness than I felt. I could feel Cassian’s eyes on me wondering why I hadn’t gone to him instead.

“Can you teach me how to use this,” I said holding up the blade in my sword hand in front of Az, “ _and_ this,” and I held up my free hand letting a swirl of fire and shadow and ice dance across it, “at the same time? Together?”

If Azriel was surprised, he didn’t show it. “Of course,” he said with a small nod. Cassian chuckled in amusement before stepping out of the space entirely and digging himself into the dirt to watch.

Without warning, Azriel launched himself at me. I’d never fought him before. It was always Cassian or Rhys, and now I saw why. Rhys might claim Cassian was the most adept at fighting, but Azriel was razor sharp. His sword sliced in and out around my body before I had time to process it was even happening.

It only took five minutes before he pulled back.

“Okay, I’m beginning to see why we haven’t met like this before,” I said.

Azriel’s head turned on its side offering me a small near-imperceptible smile. “You didn’t attack me with anything besides your sword that entire time. Not even once.”

“Neither did you,” I countered watching his shadows snake around him, but nowhere near the blade in his hand.

“I didn’t have to.” He stepped towards me, but not to attack again. “It’s not a bad thing. Keep your powers hidden until you need them. There’s no sense showing your cards if you don’t have to, but at some point you’ll have to get them out.”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes, but my head did tilt with an obvious _Really?_ air about it. “As if the world won’t already know what I can do by the time I’m on a battlefield.”

“Be that as it may, if you throw everything at a foe up front, they might assume it’s because it’s all you’ve got and if they can knock through it to capitalize where you’re weaker, you’ll make for an easy victory.”

He grabbed my sword hand and lifted it into an attack stance bringing my other hand to rest at just the right angle on the hilt in support. “But, if you wait - if you attack with nothing but brute force, even if your opponent knows you’re capable of more, you’ll carry the element of surprise.”

Azriel stepped back and resumed his stance against me. I tightened my grip on the blade knowing he wouldn’t hold back.

“Surprise me, Feyre Cursebreaker,” he said, but before he could move, I launched myself at him on instinct. I by no means caught him unawares as he deflected me easily, but there was a flicker of approval on his face when my sword struck.

We fought for hours easily. I knew Azriel didn’t unleash the full force of his skills on me, but he certainly didn’t baby me and for that I was appreciative. Being treated like an equal was nicer than I’d known before.

He met me blade for blade in regular sparring and each time I felt him gain an edge or my footing start to slip, I’d throw something of my High Lords’s powers at him: a shower of rain would flash between us; a torrent of wind would knock his body back; my sword would ignite in flame, sparking in his face. It wasn’t until after I’d sent the fire at him and remembered his hands that I stumbled back in horror of what I’d done, but Azriel didn’t so much as react other than to continue attacking me.

He was such an enigma and nothing phased him. His shadows ran in and out of his body like water through cloth, but instead of wearing him down, it only strengthened his resolve. I had to catch myself a few times from getting hit in my distraction at watching his body perform and marveling at how it worked.

It wasn’t until I threw a blanket of darkness at him and came up short that I finally faltered against him. It swiveled out of me right as Azriel made to strike, but it was so much weaker than I intended it to be with the knowledge that Rhys was somewhere else trying very hard to forget about me.

And Azriel knew it. And if he didn’t, his shadows surely told him.

I missed the blade, but still toppled over onto my back against the hard cement. I grunted and saw Azriel drop his stance before walking over to me and offering a hand.

“You’ve gotten better,” he said, pulling me up. “Cassian and Rhys have done well.”

“You’re not so bad yourself, you know,” I said taking a moment to re-wrap my hands. Somewhere between noticing Cassian had abandoned us and the fire wrapping around my sword, blisters broke out on my palms and I’d had to stop to wrap my hands up, lest they bleed me dry.

Azriel watched me and through the filter of shadows there was tension on his face, as if he wasn’t used to the praise.

“Oh stop,” I said. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like no one has ever told you you’re good at something before.”

Blade still in hand, he crossed his arms. I wondered vaguely at how his latest trip to the mortal realms had gone and if that was what had made him so icy when I first turned up that morning that he would cut a gash across his brother’s cheek.

“It’s not something I’m told often,” he said. “Most people don’t notice me.”

“Morrigan does,” I said and instantly sucked my lower lip in wishing I could take it back, but again my words ran away with me for the second time in less than a day.

Azriel’s face tightened, his shadows constricting over him in a clear message: End of discussion.

“I’m sorry,” I spat out, letting my body fall a little under my shoulders. “I seem to have made a habit of saying inappropriate things lately.” I cringed at how deflated I sounded. Guilt that I was so worked up over Rhys when I was still barely a few months gone from Tamlin ate away at me until my stomach was empty. I had no right to… to care so much.

Azriel gave a soundless snort before dropping out of his aggressive stance and running a hand through his hair. His shadows, I noticed however, remained tight as ever.

“I know what it means to be silent,” he said after a moment. “There’s nothing wrong with asking questions.”

 _Tell that to Rhysand_ , I muttered to myself, but out loud to him, I simply said instead, “Not everyone shares your opinion.” This time he chuckled with a little noise behind it.

“What’s the worst that can happen? You ask a question, you get denied, and you move on. There’s no shame in your curiosity. Rhysand doesn’t think so either despite the cold shoulder.”

I inhaled and suddenly found myself unable to look Azriel in his hazel eyes that always seemed so full of knowing and honesty. Maybe that was why his blade was called Truth-Teller - it wasn’t just for Morrigan’s sake that it carved the truth out of people, but for Azriel’s sake too.

“So the stupid prick _is_ avoiding me,” I said, more a statement than a question.

Azriel stayed silent for a very long moment considering me. I almost walked away starting to feel hot and embarrassed at what he must be thinking. How much did Rhys tell him and Cassian about what I’d said? Did he hate me now too?

He couldn’t hate me that much if he’d be willing to spend so long using his shadows in a fight to show me how to use mine.

But still, that inkling of doubt remained.

“You should talk to him,” Az said at long last and my spirits lifted when I found the deep velvet of his voice there to soothe rather than reproach. How did Mor resist it? “When you get the chance-”

“ _If_ I get the chance, you mean?”

Azriel smiled. It was small, but it was enough that it was there to wash away my subsequent doubts. “No, _when_ you get the chance. Rhysand won’t ignore you forever. Trust me when I say he couldn’t even if he wanted to and he definitely does not. Nothing good ever came from silence.”

If it weren’t for the confirmation that Rhysand didn’t hate me after all to distract me, I might have thought more on the fact that a creature born of silence who lived and died by it would deem it so nefarious.

“Is that something else you have experience with, I take it?” I asked with a bit of teasing. “Care to tell me about it?” Azriel’s brow lifted in slight amusement, but he didn’t blanch. “Hey, you’re the one who told me there’s no harm in asking questions, so don’t give me that look and say you didn’t ask for it.”

Admitting defeat, Azriel opened up his stance and hefted Truth-Teller around him in a deft swing that sent the metal flashing at me in the sunlight. He wouldn’t tell me out loud about what I suspected was an undying love for Morrigan, perhaps, and I wouldn’t have expected him to. Rhysand even said no one ever seemed to break him of any emotion save Mor herself, but his blade would do enough talking for him with the directness and strength of his hits if I asked enough.

Pleased, I hoisted my sword back into the air and resumed my fighting stance wondering how we weren’t both too exhausted by this point for more. Even as my hands tightened on the sword, I felt the hilt rub through the wraps on my hands and irritate the blisters below. And for the first time, I didn’t really care that I was injured. It sort of seemed inconsequential after how far I’d come.

“You’re on shadow boy,” I quipped and the shadows cleared on Azriel’s face just long enough for me to witness the ghost of a smile before he launched himself at me and sung the story of blood and his Morrigan through the air for me to hear.

It was the only time I traded blows with the Spymaster for a very long time, but it was a lesson in so many different truths I’d not soon forget.

xx


End file.
